Just Us
by Soul Jelly
Summary: When all is said and done, she is the only one who understands.  William, Aelita.


**Just Us**

* * *

><p><em>With a loud thud the blue structure slammed down, trapping behind it one razor-sharp tessen fan, in mid-flight, now rendered useless.<em>

_There was another, smaller thud as the weapon slammed into the column on the opposite side, out of sight. Another fan was embedded in the opposite wall; between it and its owner stood one significant obstacle._

_Him._

_He hefted his sword onto one shoulder as a satisfied grin worked its way onto his face. Backed into one corner and now weaponless, was Yumi. In another corner, trapped with no means of escape, was Aelita._

_The elf girl whimpered as she eyed the sword, the blade glinting in the ethereal blue glow that permeated Carthage. He took a step towards her, savouring the fear in her wide green eyes, reaching out one greedy, eager hand._

_Then he paused as something stirred in the back of his mind. This wasn't right. He didn't want Aelita. He wanted..._

_Yumi. Yumi could help him. His body jerked, as though he were a doll held up by strings and the puppeteer had just given an involuntary twitch. His head turned to the dark-haired girl who was inching slowly along the wall, but who froze as his gaze landed on her. She glared at him fiercely, defiant in the face of the enemy._

_She was _his_ enemy, but how could that be? He loved her, had adored her since he moved to Kadic._

_Kadic... a sharp stream of memories burst through his head, temporarily lifting the fog. This wasn't right. __He was on the wrong side..._

_He glanced back and forth between the two faces, Yumi and Aelita, and they seemed to melt into one, black and brown and pink and green... And he was William, but he was XANA, and more XANA than William – more and more so with each passing second as blood roared through his ears and William felt himself being drowned out once more._

_And yet William's body moved forward, reached out towards the elven princess. The thrill that surged through him was not his own, he didn't hear Yumi plead "William, no!" because he was XANA and XANA had what it wanted within its grasp..._

William woke with a start and sat bolt upright in bed, casting about wildly in the dark for something to hold on to as he fought through the ghosts of emotions left by his dream. Taking deep breaths and allowing his eyes to gradually adjust to the gloom so he could pick out the familiar shapes of his dorm, he took a minute or two to calm himself down.

Just another nightmare, he told himself. Except it wasn't.

William kicked the blankets aside and lay back down on his bed, staring through the blackness towards the ceiling, but he found it impossible to get back to sleep. He stood, stretched, and pulled back one side of the curtain to stare outside at the night sky as he sunk deep into his thoughts.

It had been a week since he had re-emerged from the scanner, thrown unexpectedly back into a reality he wasn't aware that he had been missing from, but it felt like so much longer. For that first blissful couple of hours when he was first rematerialised, William remembered nothing. As far as he knew, he had entered the scanner with Aelita, fought a strange jellyfish monster on Lyoko, then must have somehow been devirtualised a moment later.

His first words upon reawakening in the factory echoed around in his head.

"_Did I do good?"_

He remembered his smile faltering as Yumi and Ulrich stared him down, later joined by Odd, Jérémie and Aelita. Yumi explaining how, thanks to William's recklessness, he had fallen into XANA's clutches and been used as a pawn against them. How for a year, he had been replaced in reality by a pathetic copy who had lived, _stolen_, his life. Later that night, as he succumbed to the throes of sleep, William's subconscious assaulted him with the memories in a fashion that was to continue every night since, as finally he remembered.

God, he remembered.

It all hurt, in so many different ways all tangled up together that it was difficult to work out when one strand of bitterness about something gave way to a tinge of sadness about something else. Fear, confusion, sadness and loneliness intermingled and stole away his focus, his ability to rest.

William could never admit it to anyone, not least himself, but perhaps it was the Lyoko warriors' rejection that hurt most of all.

A sudden chill raised the hairs on his arms and brought William back to the present, where he realised as he was shivering. He turned from the window, letting the curtain fall back into place and leaving the room in darkness once more. Climbing into bed, cocooning himself in blankets to recover the lost warmth from his body, William rolled onto his side and stared into the darkness.

He finally drifted off to into a dreamless, fitful sleep in the early hours of the morning.

* * *

><p>Although he was back, William felt that he continued to exist on the periphery of everything, an outsider in his own life.<p>

Yumi, Ulrich and the others refused to speak to him and he watched their celebrations from afar when XANA was finally defeated shortly after William himself was freed. He noticed that Aelita seemed down and distracted but the others were cheerful enough, content it seemed to carry on with things as normal.

With no closure of his own, William remained caught in the midst of his own dark thoughts. He couldn't focus in lessons and the homework assignments he handed in were hardly better than the efforts of his replacement clone. Dark shadows appeared beneath his eyes. Yumi ignored him and his other classmates and friends had long since drifted away, but he made no effort to try and get them back.

It all seemed so pointless, somehow.

The other Lyoko warriors didn't notice, or if they did then they didn't care.

But Aelita did.

"He almost helped XANA win!" they exclaimed, when she pointed it out to them. "He brought it on himself. If he hadn't been so reckless, things could have been different."

"We all made mistakes on Lyoko," Aelita had argued back weakly, but the conversation continued along a different course and no one heard her, so she let it go. Aelita didn't want to argue with her friends and her thoughts day to day mostly revolved around her dead father, as she replayed the final battle in her mind and wondered what she might have done differently to save him.

Eventually, though, after spending a morning watching William staring miserably into space on the other side of the library, Aelita decided she had to do something. Perhaps helping William through his problems would allow her to take her mind off her own grief for a while. So that evening she scrolled through the contact list on her phone until she reached William's number, which she still held onto for no particular reason other than that she had no strong feelings about deleting it, though she suspected that the others already had. Taking a deep breath, Aelita tapped out a message and pressed 'send' before she could talk herself out of it.

On the other side of the school, William's phone beeped and after a moment he reached for it where it lay on his beside table, more to stop the sound than anything else. He told himself he didn't really care who was texting him but curiosity prodded him to check anyway. William raised his eyebrows in surprise at the name that appeared on the screen, and even more so when he read her message.

Aelita, of all people, was asking whether he would like to meet up for coffee.

Some hopeful part of him supposed that Yumi and the others had forgiven him, or were at least prepared to finally try and talk things out. A more cynical part of him thought that if Yumi had any part in this, Aelita wouldn't have been the one to send the text message. William ran his hand through his hair as he thought it over. The younger girl _had_ been particularly quiet as of late; maybe she needed to corner him and bombard him with her own angry tirade before she could cheer up. In which case, William supposed he had better get it over with sooner rather than later.

Pulling a face, he texted his reply.

* * *

><p>Lessons finished early on the following afternoon, a cloudy Saturday, and one o'clock found Aelita standing outside one of Bolougne-Billancourt's most famous coffee shops, situated a short walk away from Kadic and therefore a favourite with its students.<p>

She swung her bag self-consciously at her knees and checked her watch three times in the space of a minute. He had said he would turn up, but what if he didn't? Aelita thought she would probably be relieved if that was the case; she wasn't even sure what she was going to say to him.

Someone cleared their throat behind her, and Aelita spun around in alarm to see William, standing with his hands in his pockets. He looked surprised to see her there alone, but greeted her anyway.

"Aelita. Hey."

"Hello," Aelita replied, even more nervous now.

The idea of exchanging the pleasantry 'how are you?' when it was obvious that neither felt particularly wonderful seemed stupid, so after a moment of awkward silence, William simply heaved an impatient sigh and pushed open the café door, leading the way inside to the chime of a small bell. Just in time too for no sooner had they stepped over the threshold than the slightest pattering of raindrops began to fall from the sky, quickly darkening the stony grey pavement.

William and Aelita slid into an empty booth in the corner and took seats opposite one another, each hiding behind a menu. She never really knew him as a friend; he was just Yumi's classmate who sometimes helped them out, and then the possessed warrior who almost took her prisoner dozens of times. Aelita didn't think they'd ever had a real conversation before and she wasn't sure how to really talk to him. She could tell that William felt the same because between the two of them the atmosphere was almost unbearably awkward. Thankfully a waiter came almost immediately and, grateful for something to ease the tension, they ordered drinks. Black coffee for William; for Aelita, caramel hot chocolate.

"Okay," William said finally when the waiter had moved away. His eyes narrowed suspiciously. "What did you ask me here for? Because if you wanted to have your turn yelling at me, I don't think you've picked the most appropriate place."

Aelita tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, shoulders hunched up defensively and not a hint of malice in her body language or expression. In fact, she looked just as nervous and uncomfortable as William felt.

"I just wanted to see how you were."

"Why?"

"Why not? You helped us, after all."

He sneered at her. "And you were so grateful, clearly. That's why you've been celebrating XANA's defeat with me all week. That's why you _told_ me you'd beaten XANA rather than having me work it out for myself."

Aelita chose to ignore the sarcasm but she blushed slightly as she stared back at him. She didn't know what to say to his response, so she simply continued, "We also shut down the supercomputer, once and for all. I just... thought you had a right to know."

"Again, thanks for inviting me along to that."

Aelita opened her mouth to reply but at that moment the drinks arrived. Grateful for the interruption, she took a sip of the warm, sweet beverage, dabbing whipped cream from her lips with a paper napkin as she composed herself. William was hunched over, gripping the edges of the table tightly enough to turn his knuckles white, not yet touching his coffee. Maybe this was a bad idea after all. He was clearly too wound up to talk.

But she couldn't give up without even trying.

"I'm sorry for how we acted," Aelita continued, her voice sad and quiet.

"Yeah well, it's a little late for that."

"William, you have to understand. With you on XANA's side, the battle was just that much harder. We've been under a lot of stress, and-"

"You?" William laughed, but there was no humour in it. "I come out of the scanner to find a year of my life _gone_, everyone thinks I'm some kind of weirdo because of that stupid clone Jérémie made, and oh yeah, I was enslaved by a psychotic computer virus! You all have each other and I have no one-"

This made Aelita's thoughts spring suddenly to her father and her heart clenched with an almost physical pain. Tears threatened to well up in her eyes, but more than being upset, she was _angry._

"You know what? I don't know why I'm bothering, William," she snapped, pushing her unfinished drink away from her and making to slide out of the booth.

William was stunned into silence by the soft-spoken girl's uncharacteristic anger. He watched as she picked up her bag, refusing to meet her eyes. But then, because he couldn't stand to see just one more person walk away from him, he said;

"Wait."

Aelita raised her head slowly and her eyes locked with his. He bit his lower lip slightly, fighting in vain against the embarrassed blush that crept across his face. William cleared his throat and hid behind a sip from his mug, but said nothing else.

Slowly, Aelita placed her things back at her feet and sat down once more.

William couldn't quite bring himself to apologise but in lieu of that he made an effort to calm down. A feeling of shame crept over him as he realised that if he wanted to open up - and he found that he desperately needed to - he would have to admit weakness.

"It's just..." he began, before taking another sip of coffee whilst he tried to find the words. Aelita waited patiently, folding her napkin over once, twice, into a neat rectangle. Her calmness sent an another wave of anger through William and he pounded the table angrily with one clenched fist, ignoring the glares the other customers sent his way. Aelita jumped at the noise, spilling her drink, and she kept her eyes fixed on the table as she mopped it up.

"They don't understand." Anger surged up in William again, helpless frustration that he couldn't be a part of taking XANA down after all that it had put him through. "No one understands! It's awful. The nightmares, the way that... that... XANA," he choked out the name through gritted teeth, "gets inside your head, the way that-"

"The way that you can see everything he's making you do but you can't do anything to stop it," Aelita finished.

He stared at her. There was the slightest clunk of enamel against wood as William set down his coffee mug, and absently wiped his mouth on his sleeve as he stared her down.

"Yes," William said slowly, "exactly that."

She nodded.

"I know, William. Believe me, I understand."

Green eyes met dark brown and that moment of perfect clarity seemed to break all ice between them. As he stared into the girl's open, honest face, he realised that she _did_ know. He also realised that this was the first real conversation he had had in a week, and what a lonely week it had been. All of a sudden Aelita was surprisingly easy to talk to.

Pink hair and black. Hot chocolate and coffee. They were an odd pair, couldn't be any more different, but for a few significant things...

"I don't know how much you remember," she told him, "but I was possessed by XANA many times as well. He used me to destroy Lyoko..."

* * *

><p>They talked solidly for two hours.<p>

Aelita shared her own stories of Lyoko and filled in the gaps in William's memories, the ones that had yet to return to him in bad dreams. William didn't say much, remaining guarded to a degree, but hearing Aelita's thoughts and feelings in her soft, kind voice left him somehow feeling much better about everything. He had had no idea that their victory over XANA had cost Aelita's father his life, and was startled when she began to cry at the recollection. Unsure what to do, he handed her a stack of napkins from the tray and awkwardly patted her shoulder as she sniffled, at once thanking him and apologising profusely.

Their conversation was interrupted by a musical ringing sound and Aelita bent beneath the table to rummage in her bag for her phone. The tone grew louder as it repeated, as though impatient that it wasn't getting any attention. She pressed a button, quickly read whatever had popped up on the screen, and pocketed the mobile with an apologetic glance at William.

"I'm sorry, William. I have somewhere else to be." What she didn't say was that it was with Jérémie, Odd, Yumi and Ulrich, but she didn't need to - it was obvious from the embarrassed way she turned from him as she gathered up her things.

"No problem," William said, casually, though the thought of the others sent a fresh wave of melancholy crashing down over him as he remembered how much their rejection hurt, Yumi's most of all.

"You know..." Aelita began, paused for a moment, before continuing, "I could talk to them, if you want. Try to get them to come around."

"Thanks, but you can't _force_ them to be friends with me."

"I can at least try and get them to understand. They weren't effected by all this the same way we've been. You're as much a part of our adventures as the rest of us and you weren't the first person to make a stupid mistake on Lyoko or otherwise."

He felt reassured by this, as well as by the smile she gave him. William thought back to that morning and was glad he had made the decision to actually show up after all.

"Well, thanks."

"No problem." With this, Aelita stood up and William with her, both disappointed that their meeting had come to an end. "I feel as though there's more left to say," Aelita added. "Do you want to maybe meet again next week?"

"Sure."

It was as simple as that.

* * *

><p>This time, William was early, and he tried not to act too pleased as he saw Aelita approaching on the other side of the street. She on the other hand, smiled and waved enthusiastically as she spotted him, crossing the road and following him into the café as they took the same booth and placed the same order as last time.<p>

"So, Doctor Stones," he joked, "what are we going to talk about this week?"

Aelita laughed. "Well you certainly look a lot better than you did last time," she commented.

"So do you."

It was true on both counts. With the meeting with Aelita to look forward to, William had felt a lot better. The memories and nightmares still haunted him but he had managed a few nights with a decent amount of sleep and Aelita reassured him that the recollections would fade with time, as hers had done. Aelita, meanwhile, was slowly coming to terms with her father's death and knowing that she had helped William in some way had cheered her up immensely. She had even confided in her friends and this time, they had been more understanding.

Things were looking up for everyone already.

"Yumi and the others actually said hi to me this morning. Anything to do with you, Aelita?"

"Maybe. Well. I might have given them a talking to."

"Well whatever you said, it's worked."

"I told them they were too hard on you. It might take them a while to come around I think, but I'm sure you can all be friends again with time."

"Hmmm."

There was a lull in conversation as they paused to savour their drinks.

"Getting back to normal is hard," William said suddenly, abruptly swinging the subject around to the thing that had most recently been bothering him.

"I think we've all been feeling like that, Aelita admitted.

"Really?"

She nodded. "It took over our lives for so long that it's hard to just go back to normal."

"Yeah. I can't stop thinking about the year of my life that I'll never get back."

"A year? Try years, plural."

William knew Aelita didn't mean to diminish his suffering, but the statement still put things sharply into perspective for him. Out of everyone, she most of all had had her life turned upside down by XANA and Lyoko. He admired how well she seemed to get on with things, despite it all. In a strange way the younger girl was actually quite inspiring.

"What are you thinking about William?"

"Huh? Oh, nothing."

"You're just smiling to yourself, that's all."

"Oh, well... Aelita?"

"Yes William?"

"Do you ever feel as though it's always going to be a part of you, even though it's over? I mean... XANA, and everything."

"Sometimes I do."

"And-"

"But I don't think it's altogether a bad thing. We all have life experiences that make us who we are. Ours is just a little different than most."

"I guess so."

"We take what lessons we can from our experiences, and move on. Leave the bad parts behind."

"That's... really wise of you, Aelita."

She blushed and giggled. "I read something like it in a book once."

William just shook his head in amusement and grinned back at her.

* * *

><p>Late afternoon rolled around again in no time at all and presently they had to go. As they paid the bill and made to leave, William lapsed into silence. Aelita walked along beside him, her head only just reaching his shoulder. She touched his arm lightly in concern.<p>

"Is there something else bothering you?"

"No. Except maybe... are you busy next week?"

She hesitated for a moment as though thinking it through, deciding on a suitable reply. Then she shrugged to herself, answering some internal question, and tilted her head back to meet his eyes.

"No," she replied. "I'm not."

"Well, I was thinking that-"

He had come over shy all of a sudden and Aelita raised one hand to her lips to hide her grin. "Same time, same place?" she offered helpfully. He lifted one eyebrow slightly, adjusted the strap of his backpack on his shoulder.

"If you like," he said courteously, as though it had been her idea.

"We could ask the others to come with us."

"We could... but I'm kind of enjoying these meetings, with just us two."

"So am I, William."

William and Aelita. Two people who, on the surface, couldn't be any more different. Beneath that, perhaps not as different as they might think.

William held out the door for her; she smiled, walked past him, and he followed.


End file.
